Can Nintendo crank up this momentum in the run-up to the holiday shopping season? Only time will tell.

Nintendo DS Crosses 50 Million Units Sold

The best-selling video game system in U.S. history reached another milestone in September: Lifetime sales of the Nintendo DS™ family of systems have surpassed 50 million units, according to the NPD Group, which tracks video game sales in the United States.

“The Nintendo DS forever changed the gaming landscape, and the fact that consumers continue to embrace the platform is a testament to its value and mass appeal,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Our hand-held story continues with the Nintendo 3DS system, which just had its second consecutive month of growth and enters its first holiday season with a monster lineup of games, including Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7.”

Other Nintendo milestones reached in September include:

Nintendo sold more than 260,000 Nintendo 3DS™ portable entertainment systems, an increase of more than 10 percent from the previous month. Nintendo has sold nearly 450,000 units of Nintendo 3DS following a price reduction on Aug. 12.The Legend of Zelda™: Ocarina of Time™ 3D became the first Nintendo 3DS title to surpass 500,000 total units sold in the United States.Nintendo sold more than 647,000 total hardware units in September, including 240,000 Wii™ systems and more than 145,000 units of the Nintendo DS family.The 273 million software units sold for the Nintendo DS family equates to more than 107,000 games being sold per day, every day for almost seven years. More than 273 million units of software have been sold for the platform in the United States, including 24 of the top 25 and 43 of the top 50 best-selling portable games in this hand-held generation.

So how many units have been sold world wide thus far? These numbers show 700 thousand world wide April to June, says nothing about July, and 450 thousand between aug and sept in the states. Anyone have the missing data to fill in the gaps?

No, no. 700,000 units sold world wide between April and June, that is BEFORE the price cut. Since the price cut, they sold 450,000 in the USA alone. So that means they're picking up like crazy, and it's not even the holiday season yet.

@kenshinrurouniYea, I thought I read something similar on Reuters. If that's the case, it means since June, almost 3 million units were sold across the globe (not including the United states). I'm not sure these numbers are correct, but whatever. It's doing better. That's the important thing.

Its probably not just because of the price drop alone I am willing to bet that people are just now picking up a 3DS due to the fact that SM3DL and MK7 are due out here really soon. Also I wouldnt be surprised if alot of those 3DSes will find their way under a Christmas tree or in a stocking.

But than again the price now is what Nintendo should have had it on launch day. If that was the case I probably would have got the 3DS than.

majoras mask would be awesome! monsterhunter will make the 3ds sales jump as well. i know several people who have said this "well crap now i gotta buy a 3ds just to get monster hunter"my response "your really going to buy a new console for just one game?"theirs "yes!"aaaand after showing them zelda and telling them about a new resident evil they said that they now have more than one reason to buy the 3ds now.